A Tale of Travel

Have you ever imagined sitting in one place and being able to experience a whole different world simultaneously? Of course you have! I have, my brother has, my friends and parents have. Everyone wishes sometimes.. to be away. Somewhere.. not here, another chance at experiencing everything for the first time. I never thought my life would lead me down a course to actually achieving this, figuratively of course!

Let me go back a few steps. The year is 2018. I have just decided to quit engineering altogether, and figure out whatever life has in store for me. 2019 begins, I tell my dad that I cannot live life comfortably anymore and I try loosening my grip on this world every day by smoking weed. I have never been a good escape artist and the last day I officially smoked up was in February 2018. Then I went to my grandparents home for half a year to “detox” and I “relapsed” for a week when I wanted to show my dad the finger cuz of a useless argument…

Fast forwarding to mid 2019, I am in Bhiwadi, my cousin is here with me for an internship. Mind you, he is a year younger than me and academically would have been two years behind if not for my own lack of accomplishments. My dad gives a surprise visit and says “Pack your bags, we are going to Singapore.” Just to provide some context, my dad chose the country for two reasons, the first being the high quality of education in every field and the second being the extreme laws against drug consumption.

For those who do not partake in sessions, some general knowledge never hurts, does it? In India, our homeland, being found with under 10 grams of cannabis leads to a classification of “user” and can lead to a fine of Rs. 10,000 or a bailable 8 months period to serve in jail, or both, or neither, all dependent on the circumstances and quantity of the substance found. In Singapore though, being found with 2 or more grams of weed classifies you as a dealer and smuggler, the penalty for which is execution. Yeah, seems like some people didn’t get the memo of actually having succeeded at living life well into the 21st century.

Well, I was never physically addicted to weed and only psychologically addicted. Managed to get buzzed on some edibles while I was there from mid 2019 till the end of 2020. My stay within Singapore was quite strange, at first my dad and I moved to a hostel for a few weeks, after which he stayed on with me for another two months in an apartment that was more than half the island away from my institute. It was quite a task to manage my study (3D Animation) along with the daily four hours of travel with an ever persistent father breathing down my neck. He gave the usual threats when he saw me resting or relaxing, “Yeah, keep wasting my time and money”; “I will cut off all your money, let us see you manage without it” and so on and so forth, with less nuance and subtlety in combination with a sneering tone plus a switch to hindi for a more familiar and personal attack.

I managed those couple of months gracefully, didn’t smoke a single cigarette, managed my attendance and homework to a tee and even got a distinction in my first ever animation module, things were looking up, and my dad decided to leave Singapore. It was quite a relief for me and rather than live on a different planet, I moved back to the original hostel as it was relatively closer to my institute. It was still a good 35 minute bus ride away but Singapore has developed their public transportation well enough that sleeping on the bus is actually a relaxing experience most of the time, it is after all very hard to predict when a random driver flips out and decides they are above the law so cutting the uniform traffic lines is their birthright and so on. It is at the end of the day, a nice rest after a day of study.

Now let us jump into late 2019 and news reports from China. Covid has just started and Singapore declares “Code Orange”. Certainly less sinister than whatever code red might imply, but the queues in grocery stores that one day reached all around the supermarket and for the first time I realized the lack of available resources in a time of panic. My friends at the hostel and I decided it was time to drink and fortunately we found a really short queue at the market which nobody knew about because everyone’s attention was stuck to the end of the long long line, or at least everyone was trying to reach the end of the line without looking at the front! We got lucky, and got out before the people who entered hours before us. That was the day everyone started heading back home.

Fast forward again to June, 2020. My Diploma in 3D Animation is almost over. My instructors are telling me to pick up an advanced course in 3D modelling and my dad is against the idea because it is firstly not one of my strengths, and secondly, a very different field from animation. Not much different in the grander scheme of things, but for someone like me, fresh and new to this world of massive softwares and complex interactions, a world full of art and beauty overlaid on amazing programs, it seemed too different from what I had learnt. My dad though not in a position to travel, wanted me to continue staying in Singapore as it was a safer alternative to returning to India, yet without a clear motive for staying, it was quite a strange time for me, trying to figure out what to do now.

Eventually, my course instructors told me to pick up a course in Immersive XR Development, I would be rewarded with a certificate in professional excellence for delivering solutions to problems that require platforms for deploying Augmented and Virtual Reality experiences. Honestly, it looked too shiny for me to deny it and so, I decided to go through with this course. It turned out to be far more difficult than I had thought it would be. You see, Singapore had added a restriction on international travel and what this meant was no new students, and for existing students, a continuation of all courses being taught, to move to online platforms like zoom and google meetings. Covid had begun after all.

The first time I had difficulty in studying was when my animation classes went online. Other than my hostel room, there was a common area I used to go to for completing various tasks related to my projects. It was far enough from my room for resting to be a conscious choice and close enough for me to not be exhausted after a walk, with my laptop bag. Social distancing however brought an end to my daily morning and evening walks. By now, most of the people I knew in the hostel had also left, only a bare few of us were left remaining there. Not a worry really, all the more space to roam around in. Then, my XR course began, with me attending from my room itself.

It became fun, learning how to design games and see coding have a real use (I left engineering cuz most of it went over my head, without being able to see myself create something meaningful with codes and microprocessors, this graphical representation of a space where I was god.. mad me recall all my previous classes. Most of them anyway, I still can’t code to save my life! Later, as time went on, it became difficult to maintain interest in my course, I was stuck in this place without anyone else. A couple of people managed to come over to the hostel, only to leave as fast as they came. Eventually, I was the last one left in a huge complex, inhabited by the memories of all those who went home.

I managed to get a Virtual Reality headset eventually to study my courses, there was a huge hassle between me, my dad and my institute regarding my taking a device home. That is quite a useless discussion, in short, I began the actual study of VR far after the classes were over. What was I doing during those classes? Muting them. Watching something online. Eating something, Heading out for lunch. Why you might ask would I do all that when my father paid good money for me to study abroad? Well simply put, as an app developer for phones, without actually having a phone and at the same time being new to developing phone applications, it become quite difficult to study when you have no way to test your learning. With huge volumes of education requiring a VR headset and me not having one, it became pointless to learn. Once I did get the device however, I managed to catch up on all pending assignments and also join in to help in team projects.

Let me go back for a moment and rest on the fact that I was alone in the hostel. It was fun for a while, you know? Wearing just enough clothes to keep modest and less enough to not feel hot on a forested, tropical island. Smoking cigarettes wherever I wanted and making tea, sandwiches, nuggets and complete meals for my lonesome became a daily routine. That is the issue with a routine.. it gets old really fast when there is no one to share it with. One day, it started raining and pouring. With no one watching, I stepped out into the rain and walked down the roads of my hostel barefoot. Taking in every drop of water, cool as the wind that came with it. Soft and wet and sweet and cold, the drops remain in my memory as a time when I remembered happiness. That night, I felt really amazing and probably had a great sleep as well. The next day, I was informed the hostel is shutting down. I had to look for a new place to live, and move all my belongings as well.

It was a nostalgic time when I left the hostel, I took photos of the walkway and added a nice snapchat filter for adding to the emotion I was feeling then. Maybe I will share those captures with someone someday. I made acquaintance with a friendly man named Rambabu. He became my landlord for the last two months I was in Singapore, renting me a room in his home. It was nice to have a.. memory of home. A hint of the India I came from, he gave that to me. We spent a good time with each other, talking about everything ranging from politics and history to religion and entertainment, the people we missed and how strange every Singaporean custom was!

Near the place where I lived now, everything was finally cheap, accessible and fun to live with. Long walks to grocery stores with a huge umbrella, getting dosas or different chinese food items for dinner, maybe a pack of cigarettes if I was out of them and how can I forget the mandatory ice tea or juice from the vending machine! Rambabu was really kind, the room he gave me had a spare monitor, a BOSE bluetooth player, a portable fan and even a window which looked out onto the street! It was a nice place for the short two months I spent there. Then my course was over, and I took a flight back on the very last day of our presentations. I was now equipped with education in understanding animation, stories, game design, virtual reality and even 3D modelling (hidden talent).

Going back to the time I was still in the hostel, I managed to get an internship at a company based in Bangalore, with all employees working from their homes. My mentor for the first month (October, 2020) told me to go to Bangalore once my course was done to complete the internship. We were all under the impression back then about the situation improving and optimistically aiming at working from office spaces instead. I took a month long break from the internship to complete my VR projects (due to the random previously mentioned as unmentioned issues about the lack of a VR headset) and in December 2020, I landed back, right into the land of my ancestors (politically speaking, not genealogically – the latter is a different subject altogether, maybe to be delved into later in the future).

My dad was there. He picked me up at the airport, didn’t tell me the car was parked far away and didn’t wait for me to unpack my umbrella. He went on ahead while I soaked and fumbled to guard against the rain. After an unpleasant half hour, we were warm inside a heated car. I loosened up too and mostly just rested while he drove. It all felt quite nice, I had a new Indian SIM card (one that I abuse for poor network as I type today) and I was back in India. In Bangalore, a new place where my life might just be beginning anew. I just needed to figure out how to stay nicotine free for however long my dad was going to be around for and then maybe get back to the way I would want to live. On my own, as I had learnt to do in Singapore.

The car didn’t stop. We continued driving. Bangalore was about a hundred kilometers behind us before I saw my dad using his phone for navigation, with the destination roughly another two hundred kilometers away. At first I was shocked, but decided the lack of expression. We stopped soon enough and had a meal. My first desi chinese muhuhuhahahaha! Fried Rice, Gobi Manchurian and the essential back to India classic – Paneer Tikka with chutney. It was a fun meal and I decided not to think too much about where my dad was taking me. Surely it couldn’t be a bad place right? After all, he seemed to be pretty comfortable taking me there.

Now it might seem I have nothing positive to say about my father but that would be an incomplete understanding of my relationship with him. The way we have been has not changed since the time I learnt how to deny his will. A simple chore to which I replied “no” to, the very first time in my life seemed to have cemented his attitude toward me as his unruly firstborn who needed to be taught the meaning of discipline and hard work. This human will never survive in this world without going through the grit and gears of the world’s grand machine.

I call this blog a tale of travel because I have travelled a lot. I may perhaps have been to more places than you dear reader, but after a while.. such things become taxing. Even at the ripe old age of 23. I love(d?) my father for al he has ever done for me. He gave my brother and I a true global education. Along with going to one of the best schools in our locality, he also hired private tutors for me, in the ninth grade when I told him I couldn’t study without someone forcing me to. These tuitions continued for all my school years hence, and allowed me to get admitted into my engineering course to begin with. My dad took my brother and I (deliberately choosing not to take our mother, his wife, along) to many places when we were still in school. We have seen mountains in three continents, travelled between nine different cultures and even achieved national accolades in sports for niche achievements. It has been my father’s continuous investment of time and effort into my life that has helped give me the roots I stand on today. Maybe I don’t have a home anymore, but I still have my past to help guide me into my future.

As much sleep I may have lost over the 2010s, attempting to study what I hate, that much my resistance to my dad grew. Today, he still has a hold over me in the way a father and a son are linked together, but this is simply a cordial relationship now, one that hopes for mutual respect on both sides. It seems hard to manage that.. at times.. most times.. any time at all, really.

Finally my dad brought me to a place in Kolar, where we spent the next few weeks together. The place was very beautiful, though largely unfurnished. I understood how my dad wanted to overhaul this place but the restlessness in me wanted it all done as soon as could be, because my work had resumed and I required at the bar minimum, a decent internet connection. This wasn’t found, however and caused a lot of problems between me, the network supplier and my dad. Hoping for a new chance with my dad, I started wondering if this place out in the middle of nowhere was to be my new home.

As it happens, it was not meant to be. My dad is a smart man, I remember him once telling me that he would only ever give me a drink (a strong one) once I have sated his thirst first with a drink bought with my own money. Certainly idealistic, but rather stupid if one cannot stand up to their own word. My dad didn’t give me anything to drink, but on two occasions, we drank together when the alcohol was paid for by our hosts. The first time, I sipped on rum and coke while my dad had some wine, the second was beers for the both of us on New Years Eve, December 2020 – January 2021. I knew attending the party was farcical, at pure surface value alone, yet humored my dad and went along with him for a barbeque. We were obviously back before 11pm and I assumed my dad would go to bed, so I stayed up till 3am, with a slight buzz still leftover from the beers. I watched a movie called The Void that night, true Lovecraftian horror. What happened in the next few hours though not an opera in cosmic horror, was still.. hard t oget through.

I didn’t sleep much in an hour, and at 4am, New Year’s Day, my dad wakes me up in urgency. He had a medical emergency and needed to be rushed to the nearest hospital. Without going too far into the details and to avoid unnecessary concerns or assumptions, his condition was considered normal for someone his age and there were remedies to be found in the emergency ward itself. The morning was saved and we took a drive back to our house, with the kind gentlemen who drove us there, taking us back. A couple of hours later, the catheter attached to my dad loosened and we took another trip to the emergency ward to meet with a specialist doctor and to fix the faulty apparatus. This was also not the best trip in the day as my father was feeling physical irritation and physical helplessness for the first time, after a long time in his life. We left after a proper consultation and returned in the evening again due to the (still) faulty catheter.

The people in the emergency ward recognized us from the morning and got their head to help out this time. Fortunately, all physical discomfort seemed to vanish from my dad after this meeting. Back at the house, I made simple dinner for both him and me, spent some time on my own and decided to sleep. The days going forward, here in Kolar, I have to take care of my dad in this new year. “This year has begun on a positive note of service” rang in my head.

Cutting out all the existential crises I went through during his consequent operation and recovery, I felt really happy to see my father’s strength return to him. He could again take long walks and engage in common human activities and maybe even try and see where he stands with his offspring. A failed firstborn is however a failed firstborn, and in service, a monster may see aid as both mockery and servitude. Helping people can rot them inside, and if they were dark all along, whatever sheens and drapes of gold and rainbows they wore, slowly fade away to reveal whatever there was inside, all along. An unchanging rock, a lion made of glass and an all knowing owl that has seen the world for what it is. A jungle of self contradictions and compartmentalization’s of experiences, never being able to live in the complete world, despite acknowledging it exists. A lost boy, trying to figure out which drawers to open to see the world a different way.. and on failing, the child would throw tantrums in the body of a man over sixty.

While in Kolar, I finally was able to have my own bank account. My life was beginning to grow. After a physical altercation initiated by my father, my pores screamed at me to leave as soon as I could, and through divine intervention or perhaps the results of nicotine addiction, my dad rediscovered that I was smoking. Despite my having smoked all the way through Singapore and my return to India (yeah, I had discreet ways of indiscreetly smoking in that house), my dad assumed I resumed smoking out of stress due to his health, since there was a tea shop right outside the hospital which we regularly went to. Honestly, I did have the classic chai sutta combo at that tea shop, but that was besides the point. Skimming through the part where he revealed his colors, I understood the time has now come.

I didn’t have to tell my dad I wanted to leave. Despite serving him, and adjusting to the poor quality of life he wished to be in, even enduring his everlasting and relentless barrage of verbal spears, he deemed it best if I was to leave this house and move to Bangalore. “Where will I stay?”, I asked, “We will figure it out on the way”, he replied. So it happened, I came to Bangalore on the 5th of December and when my life changed, I came to Bangalore on the 16th of January. It is still funny, when I agreed with my dad that yes, I should leave and am packing my bags, he seemed taken aback. This blew up when I was in front of the pg, having already paid the security deposit and ready to move in, with him telling me that this wasn’t the only way and if I wanted, we could look for some arrangements in Kolar itself if this place in Bangalore does not suit me. My dear reader, as I write this blog, I am still in this very same pg, happy to be away from a toxic relationship.

My internship continued, my education continued, my love for my field grew and grew. I discovered how my VR headset and my knowledge of creating worlds is all I have ever wanted. All my life, dreaming of being somewhere.. not here.. and yet when I am here.. I can now choose to not be. I can choose where I want to be. I can build the world I want to see. I can fill the skies with stars and clouds and build monuments to long forgotten gods. All I do is close my eyes, and all I do is open them again. There it is, the world I want to see.

As I said, this is a tale of travel and now, I wonder what my future holds. After having come to Bangalore, I found a family and have.. tentatively and infrequently called this pg my home now. It might not be the best, nor would be ranked as the better maintained pg’s in this time of national crisis but I found a family here. My roommates, my floormates and my pgmates. All connected to me now, through hours spent together, be it through smoking innumerable cigarettes or joints together or by talking about all things under the sky, life, entertainment and most of all, what we meant to each other individually. They all deserve far more than this tale, so I wonder where they too may be a few months hence.. where I may be..

This is a tale of travel, and travel I have done. From different countries, to different cities, different cultures and even different homes, never has there been a permanence in my life, never has there been a ground for me to walk on and call my own. All I have are ideas from the ancient past when men defined the ways of society; from what a family is supposed to be to the difference between a house and a home. I have learnt from experience however that at the end of the day, home is where the heart is.

I am a traveler, I do not know where my road leads. Today it is still, tomorrow yet it may be. In a moon, or month, the horizon I do not see, many roads leading out from this the, one where today I stand. Which one will I take, or which one will my foot land on.. all questions for another day. For now I bid all thee adieu, my tale is now yours too.